Lunenburg County man convicted for dog's death in hot car

Jason Remai, 36, of Lunenburg County, has been found guilty under the provincial Animal Protection Act with failing to provide an animal in his care with reasonable protection from injurious heat or cold after his dog died in a hot car in Wolfville last summer. (GORDON DELANEY / Valley Bureau)

KENTVILLE — A Lunenburg County man has been convicted of failing to protect his dog after the animal died in a sweltering car last summer in Wolfville.

Jason Remai, 36, was found guilty in Kentville provincial court Wednesday of failing to provide an animal in his care with reasonable protection from injurious heat, an offence under the Animal Control Act.

Remai, dressed in white button-up shirt and jeans, sat quietly behind his lawyer throughout the day, occasionally consulting with him. He showed no emotion when the verdict was read.

He was charged after Kings RCMP responded to two emergency calls July 21 around 3:20 p.m. about a dog in distress inside a Volkswagen sedan in an Acadia University parking lot.

Passersby broke a back window and a woman climbed into the vehicle to pass the dog out to other rescuers.

The group tried to cool the Portuguese water dog down with water and ice. One woman, who had first aid training, tried to resuscitate the animal, but the large dog died soon after being removed from the car.

Elizabeth Brewster told the court Wednesday that she heard the dog “yelping’’ in the car as she was coming back from an herbalists convention on the Acadia campus that afternoon.

She said all the windows were closed tightly and steamed up and the doors of the vehicle were locked.

Brewster said the dog was contorted and in distress and appeared to be trying to burrow its way out through the car floor. She called 911. By that time other people had gathered, and a man broke the rear driver’s side window with a hammer.

She testified that another woman crawled into the car and helped lift the dog out. They took it to a shady area, tried to cool the animal with water, and Brewster even tried CPR, to no avail.

When asked by Crown attorney Jim Fyfe what she did next, Brewster responded, “I cried a lot.”

John Cummings testified that he broke the window. “We made the decision that if the dog didn’t get out of the car pretty quickly, it was going to die,” he said.

He told the court that he felt a “gush of heat,” like a sauna, come from the car. Other witnesses said they saw Remai with his dog earlier in the day and the dog seemed fine, even “happy.”

New Minas veterinarian Dana Power said the symptoms the dog displayed in the car and after being removed are consistent with heatstroke. She calculated that a dog trapped in a car in the conditions described could die within 20 minutes.

“They just collapse and die if not seen and treated quickly,” she told the court.

Defence lawyer Donald Murray unsuccessfully argued that no autopsy was done on the dog and there was no scientific evidence presented in court that showed the animal died from heatstroke.

But Judge Claudine MacDonald ruled that the dog was obviously in distress from being shut in the vehicle in the heat of the day. “The only reasonable inference I can draw … is that the dog got too hot inside that car and died as a result of it,” she said.

Scott Saunders, spokesman for the animal welfare group People for Dogs, watched the day’s court proceedings. He said outside the court that it was a preventable death.

“I think there is a lesson for everybody here,” said Saunders. “Don’t leave dogs in cars on hot days, warm days, semi-warm days. Don’t leave dogs in cars any day at all.”